Thursday, July 17, 2008

Every couple months someone writes me to say that they tried to order Gudo Nishijima’s translation of Shobogenzo from Amazon but that the only thing they came up when they searched was a used copy for $187 or some such thing. I really don’t understand this. The original run of the books sold out ages ago. That’s what the crumb bums out there are fobbing off as “collectibles.” But new copies have been available as print on demand books for a few years. Whenever I search “Shobogenzo” on Amazon these are the first things that pop up.

I just went and did it again and the first three volumes came up right away. Here are the links:

I got vol 4 from amazon.co.uk, shipped from the UK even. It wasprobably a bit more shipping than from the US, but was the only way Icould find it. It is often the case that odd books will havediffering availability in UK and US amazons.

It's the same deal with out of print cd's at Amazon. I have paid crazy dollaz for out of print cd's through Amazon's "marketplace", only to find 'em months later at used music/book stores for next to nothin'. Aaargghhh!!!! But it ain't Amazon's fault. They only deal with firsthand, new and in print cd's/books etc.

I'm glad this came up. I've read thru all four once and I'm trying it again, but damn more often than not they are just words on a page and I can make little sense of what I'm reading even through I've applied the *four* ways in which Dogen supposedly writes? Is there any help on this subject without a teacher?

z?tl's messiah/martyr/pied piper complex continues on. Or should I say drones on. He listens to others about as well as others listen to him. There are a lot of places other than the comment section of a little known blog to get good quality information about Zen and Buddhism. Small pond=big fish I guess.

have you seen the violence coming at them through the nintendo / xbox console?

do you think your concerns about "abuse and threats" in a blog because someone chooses to say something like "take your guts out" and you think that is meant literally are helping out there in the real world.

i hope you are not a parent and i also truly hope you do not interact with other than imbeciles who are in charge of policy making in this country.

you want me to clean up my act and speak to you in eloquent dharma terms henceforth?

i can do it, but why?

for you?

i sat with brad's sangha and girls say stuff like "eat my dick" to guys and so on and so forth.

Hey, little z0tl I wanna be your senseiSweet little z0tl I wanna be your senseiBecause I wanna be your senseiDo you love me babe? what do you say? do you love me babe? What can I say? because I wanna be your sensei

what's the tune to align those lyrix to, sensei, i wanna karaoke myself to sleep with that...

i tried floyd's dawgs of war, but it didn't quite flow...

at 9:05AM that was funny, but still dualistic. and why? because a w0rd is automatically dualistic (phenomenal/object/concept) from the get go and can only be used to [maybe, if you're really good&lucky] point to the non-dualistic (noumenal/subject of all objects/where no concepts can possibly apply).

ie, as soon as YOU appears, that's dualistic, because it implies separation between I-teh-doer and that which I'm doing onto, so called YOU.

it's too hard for me to actually read more than 8 w0rds mike_h is writing because i ran out of ritalin, but instead i'll just say he got all "intellectual on me" and, you know, i'm all like zen like and centered now.

please cut down the number of posts, i'm autistic and this is too much noise for me and the wharma gets diluted if it's only 1 post per mile of posts imparting it.

you never have anything to say for yourself.

it's always shut the fuck up or let me tell you what this guy brad is actually doing here, because i have 8 balls in my pants and i know for a fact, because one time, at sesshin camp, he like told me i sit vigorously.

i'm not even able to refrain from interacting with that little fuck z0tl, i want you sensei to do something about him, protect your sangha, it's under mortal attack.

please spare me from having to think for myself or god forbid do something original, other than try to tell someone to shut the fuck up in a very intelligent and ironic way.

don't bother me, i'm eating my whopper and sippin' my dulche de leche starbux, don't upset my centered being. i'm so centered, lookat me, i can fucking fold the oryoki bowls in record time and i didn't even spill the bean when i used chopstix.

i'm so fukken mindful it hurts.

that's why you like TV and video games, they actually don't talk back AT YOU, they just stroke your fucked up ego all day long.

anyway, no wonder your fucking sensei never talks back at you in here and when he has something to say in his blog, he's like fuck me scotty, beam me up, there's no life in my following, let alone intelligence [this joke is for the geezer generation who still remembers spock].

i'll bring back mysterion for you now, i go have a weekend. i hope you make a good 1 out of it too.

My ride home today from work on the bus was such a sweet one.A couple, both in wheelchairs were complaining about irregularities in the bus schedule. A beautiful young mother and her daughter got on and then later an older mother and her son.The driver was a man with a sense of humor. He wanted the whole bus to sing 'the wheels on the bus go round and round' for the little girl and he got on the intercom to start us off. It was a bit wacky and silly and wonderful.When the little boy got on our driver wanted to know what he had in his bag, (a plane) and he wanted to let the boy drive the bus if he could play with the boy's plane, please? The boy: 'no,' 'no,' 'no' The driver: 'How many times do I need to ask?' The boy: 131 times. The driveri 'ok, 131 times please?' The boy, 'no.'I need to write the bus company: he is one in a million.

Everywhere I look, my eyes fill with tears, not just on this sappy happy moment on LA's Rapid 920, but everywhere.

I've come to the decision not to read the comments here anymore. Just to post about something of the day. Reading the posts has started to feel like listening to jackhammers and calling it music.Sure...as conceptual music, I guess it works...There will always be problems with young bucks trying to take on a perceived rival. Yes, we have that still in the repertoire of behaviors. As humans we are still evolving. The 'dharma' isn't really a set of antlers to pit against another's.

So good luck to everyone here. I'm all for non-sequiturs.

The wife of a co-worker/friend of mine is in the hospital, in great pain.

Time is fleeting. Take the long way home, Spend all your kisses. Let your dogs sniff what they want to when you walk them--

My grandmother's favorite fruit was blueberries.She is dead now. I think I will have some tomorrow and enjoy them for her.

don't let me catch your head between clappers on your way out to chronicle your moment and never again read comments!

oh you super evolved hypocrite zen master, get your ass on the cushion NOW, it's 5:30 and at the sound of the next bell, maybe, maybe you'll start getting it, but very, very slooooooooowly, soto style, not suddenly rinzai or anything.

fucking pathetic strawmen, lookat me cryin' over grandma, she's dead now, i have no fucking clue what happens when we die, i'm scared shitless of everything and look at wheelchaired people like their sub-human.

but i'm a master, oh yeh, because i will stop reading these idiotic comments and i will blog about my sorry SELF and its daily idiocy.

you all are so very beyond w0rds and your actions are always "correct" because you're so advanced in your 15 minutes a day sitting practice, but if someone gets up and actually says anything worthwhile to you, you've got nothing to say, you sit like mutes mumbling some cuss w0rds that are supposed to show understanding.

attached to view? over attached to a view?Over and over blah blah blah you losers it's 5:30 a.m. blah blah blah you strawmen blah blah you fuckers blah blah

I have seen others like this

they were on a locked ward

until their very real (to them) world includes all others, their 'reality' is a battering ram and when all you've got is a battering ram, everything else is a wall (after the quote 'when the only tool you have is a hammer, every poblem appears as a nail').

the lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall,the fly her spleen, the little spark his heat;and slender hairs cast shadows though but small,and bees have stings although they be not great;seas have their source, and so have shallow springs,and love is love in beggars and in kings.where waters smoothest run deep are the fords;the dial stirs, yet none perceives it move;the firmest faith is in the fewest words;the turtles cannot sing and yet they love,true hearts have eyes and ears, no tongues to speak;they hear and see and sigh, and then they break.

When we are acting like Dhalai Lamas then that is time/reality; when we are acting like complete dicks then that is time/reality too. Every moment of Dhalai Lama-ness and every moment of dick-ness has equal potential for us to experience and enact time/reality; we can always realize directly that things are just like this here now.

let's finish off jinzang 1st. he asks z0tl if he's ready to learn, blows over the response to then proclaim in an enlightened, all compassionate manner ...

Your posts here show clear signs of mania. Seeing that, I didn't think it wise or proper either to respond to them or criticize you for posting them. So I just sent my good wishes, which were sincere, even though you doubt that.

I don't know if your mania is caused by drugs, the improper practice of chi kung, or some sickness. But I do know that you will be happier if you can resolve it.

jinzang, it is because judgmental folk like you who can see "clearly" that those wards are full of innocent beings locked up there because they dare voice energies that are coursing through their vehicles.

evil cloaked in good, i call it, & i will dedicate this life on this planet to shine light on it [like brad does], with the same clarity you think you shine on me.

to the poor saps who feel i'm out here to preach anything or show my infinite wisdom, i'm sorry for your pain and glad to provide the lower form for you to validate against.

ordinarily, there's that sodeska story, where there's no need to defend, no need to assert, blah, but perhaps for some here it would help to understand my attachments.

there's a guy who's known me on the nets since 2oo2 and has dedicated a whole blog http://undeleted.blogspot.com where some of my most wonderful madness has been saved for posterity (tho it requires lots of clicks on older link) or you can go to time machine (archive.org) and type in there z0tl.diaryland.com and see 1% of 25oo+ blog entries i was doing between 2oo2 and 2oo5 when i finally got to the point of being able to cling to nothing (digital) anymore.

and that includes burning all my pictures, journal, blah, blah, blah, spending inordinate amounts of editing time on youtube and letting go of that shit instantly on a whim, if i wanna.

the only reason i am doing these theatrix with changing user names, obliterating blogs, etc is to try and show there's no point in trying to cling to an identity, let alone digital, since any1 with the least know-how can take it away from you.

but anyway, you prolly think i'm ashamed of my boobs in that myspace picture :)

that's fine too.

here's my website and last name, just so it's clear that trolling is not my intention here, nor do i shit in my pants because someone i tell to fuck off in here may later kick my ass IRL.

Just putting in my two bits on the dialogues running through here. Take it or leave it.

Running away from this entity we know on this blog as z8tl doesn't make z8tl cease to exist. Hiding from those things that are averse doesn't change anything. Thats called denial. Its very comfortable to simply deny what -we don't like/agree with/offends us/makes us angry/makes us think/confronts us/makes us uncomfortable. But that viewpoint isn't too realistic.

There is a time in practice when some people begin to think they get this interdependence thing. One gets all syrupy and weepy and sobs uncontrollably when their dog takes a shit because it helps the continuity of life by fertilizing the earth, oh the blessed earthworm is me and those flowers are blossoming in my brain blah blah blah. The heart sutra nearly gives multiple orgasms every time you hear it and forget about the rush every time a drop of water falls from the faucet into the bathtub as you soak there.This is simple dharma rapture. And it has an ugly side as well. And that starts to come up more and more as one pushes beyond the falseness of the dharma rapture. And its a place most people don't want to go so they stay all love and light and weepy creepy. Its what I think of as the Buddhist drug of choice. It was mine for a while too when I gave up the other kind many years ago. It's E alright but not Enlightenment.

For a couple of years at the beginning of practice I felt something like what z8tl expresses. The superficiality of EVERYTHING was incredibly frustrating. The feeling is like "How can YOU-meaning everyone else in the world-take any of this bullshit seriously?" Its all made up. Everyone is just a made up conglomeration of stuff from this fake world, this dream and is believing in it with all their might. And they are defending it and they are even willing to fight and die to maintain this facade. What you think you are is just a result of biology/culture/parenting/education/experience/worldly fake stuff. Can't you see that? What a bunch of fools.

At the same time for someone who takes the Bodhisattva viewpoint seriously there is this incredible urgency to wake them all up. To dispense this knowledge to as many as possible by any means available or necessary. To shout at them, slap them, zap them with a taser if necessary, anything to get a non-conditioned response. But most people aren't ready for that.

And in the experience of this entity known here as NellaLou when one manages to get through the initial experiences with this heaven/hell combination what is there?Just the stuff that is and the stuff that isn't and more of the same but from a slightly different and somewhat more calm viewpoint.

Brad used the term "situationally appropriate" in one post about a business meeting. That's the most difficult thing to maintain when one gets some grasp on the foolishness that many people take so seriously. It takes a lot of patience. And sometimes just gritting the teeth and suffering the fools. And sometimes the pointed stick of reality can burst that whole bubble. Situational, relative, temporary, no absolute in that ego-bound world.

This stuff cycles on and on. Not with so much intensity but nonetheless it continues. z8tl is quite right in talking about the Abhidharma as it deals with all of this stuff in pretty minute detail. It is interesting but its also complicated, metaphorical, and sometimes really boring. Sort of like Dogen to the nth degree.

There have been times reading the comments here I've felt like giving z8tl a slap and telling him to calm down there's way more to come yet. And the same with some others as well. But who the fuck am I to do that? I'm no Buddha, saint, master or teacher. Have had nearly 30 years of a Buddhist practice but still have those conditioned reactions. About the only thing that has changed is having a better ability to control the expression of those reactions. And some idea as to their origin. So maybe one needn't expect too much by way of fireworks from sitting for a long time.

@ z8tl, not that you care what I say at this point, I hope you keep on doing what you're doing. Maybe I don't know what you are experiencing but maybe I do. And there is also the possibility you don't know what I am experiencing either. Maybe no one can know what another is experiencing. Ultimately maybe there's really no one to experience anything. What's the difference? End of my blab. Take care man.

in other w0rds, more dick measuring, even when you get to those levels.

wtf?

i wouldn't presume to label anyone's experiences, but i do know all those experiences, perceived phenomenally (within the spacetime constraints) are pretty much out the window makyo ground.

nuttin to do with feelin' freed up whatsoever.

do i feel freed up? i'm not sure what i feel anymore, to be perfectly clear. it's hard for me to imagine situations that would freak me out, perhaps paraplegia would bring a tear to my left eye, but not for me, for those who might have to wipe my ass afterwards...

i'm way past the multiorgasmic bullshit and the terror of being lost in eternal emptiness.

why the fuck can't i get over the disappointment part (ie, having expectation others will get it), puzzles me to no end.

i think it's more like, shit man, if these guys are so caught up in santa claus material, what hope is there really for this rock?

ah, well, i made it all up, i'll take it all with me when i go, as i say, i've no bodhisattva delusions holding me back another round.

orion/m42 next via x1-cygnus reintegration of 4-dimensional consciousness within the 0tl dimension. 1st, 2nd, 3rd graders, i implore you, step away from the vehicle before talkin' to me again.

finding "Shobogenzo" was pretty easy, I was surprized. There are many new sites offering free downloads. I haven't searched for a copy by that author, but I got one that I am now reading for free. This is one of the biggest requirements for me at this point, quick and easy access.

z8tl:the only reason i am doing these theatrix with changing user names, obliterating blogs, etc is to try and show there's no point in trying to cling to an identity...

In doing so you are clinging to an identity. In doing all these trollish postings you are clinging to an identity. If you were not you could just happily be a lurker. Many people have created and killed blogs. It's no big. I've been doing it since 2004 and lots of people used to read what I wrote and miss it now its gone.

nallalou:

Have had nearly 30 years of a Buddhist practice but still have those conditioned reactions. About the only thing that has changed is having a better ability to control the expression of those reactions.Is that not enough? Would you rather be an unfeeling zenbot? Is it not better to be able to fully experience an emotion/reaction and then to choose to act or not on it?

Go check out WALL-E. It's a wonderful film - a new classic. If you didn't have conditioned responses to it the film would be far less enjoyable and not make its point.

z8tl:why the fuck can't i get over the disappointment part (ie, having expectation others will get it), puzzles me to no end.

It's the identity-clinging thing again. "I am the supreme enlightened being whose greatness will be recognised and so I through my greatness will......"

You still want to believe that life has meaning, that you are important, that the world gives a shit about you. But that isn't what Buddha taught.

You and I are insignificant worthless pieces of crap - just like 6 billion other people on this planet amongst many billions of starts that also have planets.

You want to be feel important and powerful because you know you are not. You are still clinging to that dream.

1NT - life sux.

2-4NT. Suck it up and deal.

That's the big secret you are missing out on. The real badass dudes on this planet look perfectly ordinary and lead anonymous lives. They don't give a shit what other people think and they don't give a shit what they think.

Brad can set up this Troll paradise because he doesn't give a shit.

I can choose to have a conversation with you, insult you or ignore you because it's all the same to me. I've been dancing with trolls for many years now. It's a hobby like many others I have.

Today it's a nice sunny day. I'm flooded with work but I think I'm gonna take the day off go for a drive in my sportscar and have a nice walk a lunch and a beer.

All totally fucking meaningless - which is why I can enjoy it. When life has no meaning you can enjoy all of it. With nothing being special everything becomes special and wonderful.

Many wannabe Buddhists only remain so by denying their inner trollness.

If so please read flier below. Also, any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

To just be is our most natural and happiest state.

Often we think that to acquire or accumulate something results in happiness. However the happiness orpleasure that we feel is so fleeting that we strive for more.

What we don't realize however is that it is not the accumulation that brings us happinessbut rather the shedding of all that is unnatural to us.

What is unnatural to us?

Compulsive thinking is mankinds biggest threat. Whilst a useful tool, thought is not reality and justmental noise. Some people mistake this mental noise for who they are and become mad.By an act of monstrous reductionism, we have mistaken the noise for our true self and missed out on99% of reality. Of course, thinking has its place. Everything man made that exists around you was once a thought in someones mind. Thats the beauty of thought. There is nothing wrong with thought, however, reality cannot possibly be put into thought since reality has infinite depth. To see thought for what it trully is, is true liberation and the end of suffering.

What can i do to realise the reality of thought?

There are innumerable methods to still the mind and to realize reality-as-it-is. Some traditions promotebreathing exercises, others involve concentration on some mystical mantra. My method is alot simpler. Its calledShikantaza which translates as "just sitting" It involves sitting upright on a cushion called a zafuand simply letting the mind quieten by itself. For thinking has a involuntary aspect as well as a voluntary one- which simply prolongs thought.

Simply put, if you Want to live to the fullest; Sit down and shut up.

Just be aware however, that if you decide to take up shikantaza your personality and outlook will change. You will start appreciating life as if every moment is sacred.

This entire universe is an interconnected community. Lets realise this by sitting together at my house.

@mike-hYou said:Is that not enough? Would you rather be an unfeeling zenbot? Is it not better to be able to fully experience an emotion/reaction and then to choose to act or not on it?

In response to what I said:Have had nearly 30 years of a Buddhist practice but still have those conditioned reactions. About the only thing that has changed is having a better ability to control the expression of those reactions. And some idea as to their origin. So maybe one needn't expect too much by way of fireworks from sitting for a long time.

I don't believe anything in that statement is a complaint about my current state of being. It is merely an expression of the situation at the present point in time.I expressed no desire to be other than that nor to relinquish all emotion or feeling.Please don't pour your suppositions or amateur psychology on me.

small dick, check, big boobs, check, stoned (twice in my life on chronic at 36 as an experiment while zazennin', you know, kinda like when ole ram dass gave the lsd to his guru, i gave it to my sorry self to see what not).

wow, i've been so exposed, it's like next brad will be featured in a national enquirer article...

Next week I'll be a perfectly ordinary small-dicked guy in a diesl car.

Is Asshole/wannbe Troll the only thing you can be or can you play nice as well?

As for learning zen from Brad. Hmmmm. I actually come here to learn how to play guitar.

gbitty:how would you like me to be?

...

Sometimes people like what I write and sometimes not. Sometimes people like how I behave and sometimes not. Either way it always seems to be my fault.

People this week in blogland generally seem to think that I've been a bit of an asshole. They might be right. Other weeks I seem to be a nice guy and people seem to like it.

From time to time people tell me that I should be this way or that I should be that way. Often the way they want me to be is not the way I am at that moment in time. If I try and stop myself being an asshole it doesn't go well. If I try and stop myself being a nice guy it doesn't go well.

I've generally found that it's better not to try and stop either one and not to care too much either way. Sometimes that means I have to clean up the mess afterwards if I'm either too nice or too much of an asshole.

Over the next two days I'm cleaning up a mess because I have been too nice to my customers. If I was more of an asshole I could ship out the stuff that I made as it stands instead of binning it and starting again.

As someone pointed out earlier (ISTR harry) we can all be nice guys and assholes. Some people just want to be nice guys. Some people just want to be assholes. In doing so they deny half of themselves because nice-guy/asshole are opposites.

If people only ever want me to be a nice guy or only ever want me to be an asshole then really what they are saying is "don't be yourself, don't be natural".

In fact I'd rather just be myself. It that means that sometimes I appear to be an asshole and at other times I appear to be a nice guy then so be it.

I've tried to fit in with other people's expectatations and that doesn't go well. I've tried to fit in with my own expectations - and that doesn't go well. When I drop expectations then it seemes to go a lot better.

Any advice for achieving stone dead-cold non thinking during zazen? I've been doing a mini-sesshin this weekend to see if I can possibly make it through Shizuoka in September.

Not that I have a stopwatch going, but it seems like I can only not-think for a few seconds, then (hell, what's the right sound effect?) whuuuuuup up pops a thought, or even worse a dream (damn! dozing off again during zazen! Must be perfectly unattached and in the now...now dammit).

I get this feeling I've got this huge store house of thoughts that needs to drain over the next few years before it becomes in-the-now empty.

Or maybe it's cross-talking neurons that need gentle guidance through hours and hours of nothing to start producing nothing for me.

Oh well, Guatama took 6 years to get it. Should be discouraged after a few months.

@laurenAs long as there is biochemical activity in the brain there will be thinking. Only the dead or comatose (?)stop thinking completely and I'm not even sure about the latter one. One can just let the thoughts sort of drain out to pick up on your metaphor but the dopamine and serotonin etc just keep on percolating up there. And not thinking completely would reduce one to a zombie. I like this quote:

If we regard meditation as just getting into a fog so that you do not see, you do not feel, something is terribly wrong. In that case meditation would reduce one to a zombie. The enlightened man would have to be rescued. Someone would have to feed him and take him to the bathroom. We would have to have an enlightenment ward.-Chogyam Trungpa in Glimpses of Abhidharma

mikey, if you see it and you swear you're not identified w/ the asshole that's being it at the time, then who am i to have a pro'lem with you?

i do have a pro'lem if you dump the cement load on my head because you can't get passed my "foul" language.

that's like never ever listen to a 2pac song, because he's all gangstarap and "he deserved what he got."

anyway, lauren, don't take advice from me, i've only done ONE 4-days retreat [however it was tougher than the shit brad runs in japan and how i know that is simply base on web schedule and 1 day sitting w/ him in santa monica]...

thoughts are like kids in the courtyard. let them play, be aware so they don't run amock, but BE on the cushion, sitted.

again and again, 6 senses, your thinking (product of your brain) just like smelling is a product of your nose (and please don't get technical and tell me smell sensing is in the brain, because then i will tell you there's 3 fucking areas in the brain let's say and why for fukkssakes do you choose to trust the one that developed the latest, ie cerebral cortex over some such other shit, like corpus collossum, sorry if my anatomy isn't up to snuff).

listen, when you have thoughts, you have to GENTLY revert to your method.

your method needs to be something OTHER THAN THINKING.

now if you shikantaza your ass, there's not much instruction coming along with that, perhaps: STRAIGHTEN YOUR SPINE.

okay then. you think, back to straightening your spine.

you think, don't beat yourself over thinking, let it think, but back to straighten your spine.

get fucking internal with it, ie use your felt senses, go like journey to the center of the spine.

"As someone pointed out earlier (ISTR harry) we can all be nice guys and assholes. Some people just want to be nice guys. Some people just want to be assholes. In doing so they deny half of themselves because nice-guy/asshole are opposites."

The Buddhas taught/teach that we should not intentionally do what we know to be wrong no matter how naturally it seems to come to us.

wrong is in the mind of the done upon. since there is no doer and no done upon, but the doing is real, wtf jibberish you spew here?

there is no one out there to commit wrongs, you foo!

also, it doesn't matter how righteous i feel (or actually am in the eyes of some other dharma "holder/judge" about doing you right! if you feel wronged, it's wrong and there go my bad karma points kaching kaching spiraling up.

"It's still there" was just a little light-hearted humor. You very kindly offered that I should not 'take' your advice (rather consider it as options) and I was simply saying that I had not 'taken' it. It was still there on the page.

Yes, your 'teacher' is an idiot then (and I should know: I'm a baaad self-taught musician!).

From one idiot to another: The sometimes OK thing about Zen and other Buddhist tradition, and the odd really good teacher that we can encounter via them, is that they've made the exact same mistakes that you are convincing yourself of.

In the 'good old days' there would have been someone there to give you a not-too-playful slap in the head or sharp kick in the enlightened orbs to highlight the real nature of the implications of right and wrong conduct. As it is we just have to put up with your indulgent waffle (unless you'd like to give yourself a good kick in the balls courtesy of us?).

I've realised that zen isn't for everybody. It wasn't for Mike Cross and it isn't for Michael Barden or whatever.

I wouldn't be so quick to judge and write off others.

Some people take longer than others to do the work. Some people have more to deal with than others.

Maybe you were lucky and haven't had much in your mind that was tough to deal with when it was unearthed. Maybe you have stuff still to deal with that has not yet been faced.

Some people are lucky with Zen - they don't have much to deal with. Maybe you have been lucky and have led a relatively normal life with relatively normal problems.

Not everyone is so lucky. I have not been so lucky.

A lot of practice for me has been in sitting with the wildness of my own mind and all that was buried in there. Sitting with it and not getting overwhelmed with it, or running away from it or denying it.

Mike Cross is not always the easiest of people to be around but I'd be loathe to write him off as a Zen failure.

I feel that his new version of the Shobogenzo is showing greater clarity than the previous version. I feel that his revised version now for me makes more sense than what went before and more closely matches my own experiences and other texts.

Mike Cross may [appear to] dislike me intensely at times and we are hardly the best of friends but he does still seem willing to listen to the truth from time to time. Sometimes I have put postings onto his blog and he has not published or acknowledged them but sometimes I get the feeling that he may have read them and taken them to heart.

Michael B has shown that he has the capability for empathy and compassion - at least sometimes.

If you are confident in the strength of your own practice then it might be worth you trying a little experiment. 'Become' Mike Cross or Michael B. Get yourself into a state of mind where you could write as they sometimes write. It's just emphathy.

Sometimes I compare my experience of zen with the experience of others and decide whether they are correct or incorrect in their practice. This is quite wrong.

But, I still believe that the approach to zen is extremely important. You must be willing to give up ideas. Otherwise how can you enjoy walking, shitting, typing on the keyboard or the feeling of drinking cool water properly.

The more idealistic you are it seems, the less likely you are able to enjoy these little treasures of life.

But, I still believe that the approach to zen is extremely important. You must be willing to give up ideas.

Truish. But it is a process. Lots of people come into Zen with lots of ideas. Ideas are shed over time.

I think that perehaps most important of all is a willingness to 'find' the 'truth'. A willingness to accept that everything you think you know and believe might not be accurate or might even be just plain wrong.

A will to truth is more important than anything else.

Most people I've met within Buddhism and Zen seem to be full of ideas; seem quite determined to defend them and seem quite determined to adopt new ones that are approved of in some way.

This is quite different from the few who I've met who seem to have had some strong direcct experience and don't seem all that fussed about defending ideas and beliefs.

A willingness to face uncomfortable but recognisably accurate information covers over a multitude of other failings.

But I'm not really interested in discussing right and wrong approaches to zen. I found one approach, other people find other approaches. Some horses need a whip......